System and method for storage device emulation in a multimedia processing system

ABSTRACT

A device and method for storage device emulation in a multimedia processing system are provided. The device includes a processing module to process multimedia data, a first mass storage device interface operably coupled to the processing module, the first mast storage interface operable to couple to a mass storage device interface of a multimedia processing device and a second mass storage device interface operably coupled to the first mass storage device and the processing module, wherein the second mass storage device is operable to couple to one or more mass storage devices. A method is also provided. The method comprises receiving a first multimedia data at first mass storage device interface of a first multimedia processing device, processing the first multimedia data at the first multimedia processing device to generate a first processed multimedia data and providing the first processed multimedia data to a second mass storage device interface of the first multimedia processing device for output.

FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE

The present disclosure relates generally to multimedia processing andmore particularly to the storage and access of multimedia data.

BACKGROUND

Multimedia decoding components found in, for example, DVD players andset-top boxes typically utilize a decoder to decode encoded multimediadata (e.g., MPEG video and audio data). The multimedia decodingcomponents then provide the decoded multimedia data for formatting fordisplay as video and audio content. To reduce cost and complexity, manyof these multimedia decoding components have limited capabilities.Moreover, these components often implement limited types of interfacesthat may be used to connect to other components. Frequently, the onlydevice interface provided by such components is a single mass storagedevice interface through which the components connect to one or moremass storage devices for the storage of and access to multimedia data.The limited interface capabilities of these multimedia decodingcomponents typically inhibits the ability to connect other components ina conventional manner so as to increase the capabilities andfunctionality of multimedia processing components implementing adecoder. Accordingly, a system and technique for interfacing with suchmultimedia components would be advantageous.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The purpose and advantages of the present disclosure will be apparent tothose of ordinary skill in the art from the following detaileddescription in conjunction with the appended drawings in which likereference characters are used to indicate like elements, and in which:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary multimediaprocessing system utilizing a mass storage emulation device inaccordance with at least one embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIGS. 2 and 3 are flow diagrams illustrating exemplary operations of themultimedia processing system of FIG. 1 in accordance with at least oneembodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary implementation of amultimedia processing system using mass storage device emulation inaccordance with at least one embodiment of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DISCLOSURE

The following description is intended to convey a thorough understandingof the present disclosure by providing a number of specific embodimentsand details involving multimedia data processing and storage. It isunderstood, however, that the present disclosure is not limited to thesespecific embodiments and details, which are exemplary only. It isfurther understood that one possessing ordinary skill in the art, inlight of known systems and methods, would appreciate the use of thedisclosure for its intended purposes and benefits in any number ofalternative embodiments, depending upon specific design and other needs.

FIGS. 1-4 illustrate various techniques for emulating a mass storagedevice so as to provide supplemental functionality to a multimediadevice having a mass storage device interface. In at least oneembodiment, a processing device having supplemental functionality isconnected to another processing device via its mass storage deviceinterface. The supplemental processing device, in turn, is connected toone or more mass storage devices and utilizes a storage device emulatorso as to appear as a conventional mass storage device to the otherprocessing device. The additional functionality may allow the combineddevice to operate as, for example, an enhanced DVD player, a DVDrecorder, a personal video recorder (PVR), a set-top box, and the like.The mass storage devices contemplated herein include, but are notlimited to, hard disk drives, optical drives (e.g., CD and DVD drives),solid state storage drives (e.g., flash memory drives), floppy magneticmedia drives (e.g., 3.5′ floppy drives or Iomega® ZIP® drive), and thelike. The mass storage device interfaces contemplated herein arecompliant with one or more storage device standards or specifications,including, but not limited to, an AT attachment (ATA) specification, aserial ATA (SATA) specification, an ATA packet interface (ATAPI)specification, a universal serial bus (USB) specification (e.g., USB1.0, USB 2.0), an IEEE 1394 standard (also known as Firewire), and thelike.

For ease of illustration, the following exemplary techniques aredescribed in the context of processing multimedia content formatted incompliance with one or more MPEG standards, such as, for example,MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and/or MPEG-4. The following exemplary techniques alsoare described in the context of interfaces compliant with an ATAPIspecification. However, other multimedia data formats (such as, forexample, DiVX, Quicktime, H.261, RealVideo, M-JPEG, and the like) may beutilized in view of the teachings provided herein, as may other storagedevice interface specifications (such as ATA, SATA, USB, IEEE 1394, andthe like) without departing from the spirit or the scope of the presentdisclosure.

Referring now to FIG. 1, an exemplary multimedia system 100 isillustrated in accordance with at least one embodiment of the presentdisclosure. The system 100 provides functionality directed to theprocessing of multimedia data, such as MPEG video and audio data, andmay include, for example, a DVD player, a DVD recorder, a cable set-topbox, a personal video recorder (PVR) (a commercial example of a PVRincludes, for example, the TiVo® box available from TiVo, Inc. ofAlviso, Calif.), and the like.

In the illustrated example, the multimedia system 100 includes amultimedia processing device 102 having a processing module 104 and amass storage device interface, such as ATAPI host interface 106,connected via a storage device bus 100 (e.g., an ATAPI bus) to a massstorage device 110 (e.g., a hard disk drive or a DVD drive). Themultimedia processing device 102, in one embodiment, may include an MPEGdecoder whereby MPEG data obtained from the storage device 110 via theATAPI host interface 106 or MPEG data obtained from A/V feed 114(discussed below) is decoded by the processing module 104. The resultingmultimedia content then may be provided for display on display device112. The multimedia content may be provided, for example, using adisplay driver (not shown) or the system 100 may include wirelessinterfaces, such as, for example, IEEE 802.11 compliant wirelesstransceivers (not shown) to wirelessly transmit a signal representativeof the multimedia content.

In at least one embodiment, the multimedia processing device 102provides only limited multimedia processing capabilities. For example,the multimedia processing device 102 may include an MPEG decoder that,while capable of performing decoding operations, fails to provide, forexample, MPEG encoding functionality. Alternately, the multimediaprocessing device 102 may include, for example, an MPEG encoder capableof performing encoding operations while failing to provide MPEG decodingor transcoding functionality. As additional examples, the multimediaprocessing device 102 may fail to provide functionality associated withencoding or decoding, such as, for example, dual encoding, DVDauthoring, personal video recording (PVR), copy protection and digitalrights management tools such as encryption/decryption, and otherapplications used to contribute to the device's intended application. Toillustrate, the multimedia processing device 102 may include a retailDVD player having an MPEG decoder for decoding encoded MPEG datatypically obtained from a DVD, but missing any ability to encode ortranscode multimedia data.

Accordingly, in at least one embodiment, the system 100 further includesan additional supplemental processing device 120 operably coupled to themultimedia processing device 102, whereby the multimedia processingdevice 120 supplements the functionality of the multimedia processingdevice 102. In the illustrated example, the multimedia processing device120 includes a first mass storage device interface (depicted as ATAPIclient interface 122), one or more processing modules 124 and a secondmass storage device interface (depicted as ATAPI host interface 126).The ATAPI client interface 122 is coupled to the ATAPI host interface106 of the multimedia processing device 102 via the ATAPI bus 108. TheATAPI host interface 126 is coupled to one or more mass storage devices128, 130 via an ATAPI bus 132. The supplemental processing device 120further may include an A/V input 133 coupled to, for example, the A/Vfeed 114 to receive encoded or unencoded/decoded multimedia content. TheA/V input 133 may include any of a variety of connections utilized totransport multimedia content, such as, for example, a coaxial input toreceive cable or terrestrial television signals (including digitalcable), a wireless receiver to receive wirelessly-transmitted multimediacontent, a network interface (e.g., an Ethernet interface) to receivemultimedia content over a network, a set of standard analog audio/videocables (e.g., Y/C, component, or composite cables) coupleable to any ofa variety of consumer multimedia products, such as, for example,camcorders, DVD players, and the like.

The one or more processing modules 124, in one embodiment, supplementthe functionality provided by the processing module 104 of themultimedia processing device 102. For example, where the processingmodule 104 is a MPEG decoder, the processing module 124 may include anencoder so as to encode multimedia data provided by or to the processingdevice 102 or the processing module 124 may include a transcoder so asto transcode multimedia data for provision to the processing device 102or the storage devices 110, 128 and 130. The one or more processingmodules 124 also may provide other capabilities, such as DVD authoring,encryption (e.g., content protection for recordable media (CPRM)scrambling) and other Digital Rights Management (DRM) techniques,subtitle addition, automatic chapter indexing based on cues and keywordsretrieved from the stream, keyword detection based on OCR or voicerecognition, and the like. Examples of capabilities of the multimediaprocessing device 120 and its integration with the multimedia processingdevice 102 are illustrated in detail below with reference to FIGS. 2-4.

In multimedia systems that provide full functionality, multimediacomponents, such as MPEG encoders, decoders, codecs and transcoders,typically are connected using interfaces tailored specifically for suchinterconnections. For example, PCI buses frequently are used for genericdevice connections and ATAPI interfaces are frequently used forconnections to storage devices. USB and IEEE1394 connectionsconventionally are used for storage devices such as flash memory cardsor external camcorders. However, in the interest of reducing cost and/orcomplexity, limited functionality multimedia devices, such as themultimedia processing device 102, may lack such an interface or may nothave such an interface available for connection to another multimediaprocessing device in a conventional manner. To illustrate using theretail DVD player example provided above, the DVD player may have beenoriginally designed so as to only provide DVD playback capabilities andtherefore does not have the hardware, firmware or software capabilitiesto directly manipulate the supplemental processing device 120 through aconventional processing device-to-processing device interface. However,it may be desirable to modify the DVD player so as to implement thesupplemental processing device 120 for additional functionality. In thisexample, the DVD player, by incorporating the supplemental processingdevice 120, may be converted to a PVR whereby live content or home videocan be captured and stored into a local hard disk drive, and in turn,such previously stored multimedia content may be transcoded, and thenrecorded onto a recordable DVD media. In an example, a cable set top boxhaving a multimedia processing device 102 in the form of a MPEG decodermay be modified to implement a supplemental processing device 102 in theform of an encoder or transcoder so as to convert the decode-only settop box to a PVR with a built in hard disk drive and a DVD recordabledrive.

Accordingly, the supplemental processing device 120 may be configured soas to operate as a conventional mass storage device with respect to themultimedia processing device 102. In this instance, the supplementalprocessing device 120 includes a storage device emulator 134 to managethe operation of the ATAPI client interface 122 and the ATAPI hostinterface 126 (as well as the one or more processing modules 124) sothat the supplemental processing device 120 receives data and commandsfrom, and provides data and commands to, the multimedia processingdevice 102 in the same or substantially similar manner as would the massstorage device 110. Through storage device emulation provided by storagedevice emulator 134 and the connection via the mass storage deviceinterfaces of the processing devices 102 and 120, the operations of thesupplemental processing device 120 may be entirely transparent to themultimedia processing device 102 because it appears to the multimediaprocessing device 102 that data is provided to, or obtained from, aconventional mass storage device. For example, the supplementalprocessing device 120 may be utilized to perform encoding or transcodingoperations on data provided from the multimedia processing device 102prior to storing the encoded/transcoded data in at least one of thestorage devices 128 or 130. In this instance, the multimedia processingdevice 102 provides the data to the supplemental processing device 120via the ATAPI host interface 106 as it would provide data to the massstorage device 110.

As another example, the supplemental processing device 120 may encode ortranscode data obtained from the mass storage devices 128 or 130 priorto providing the encoded/transcoded data to the multimedia processingdevice 102 via the ATAPI client interface 122. In this instance, themultimedia processing device 102 receives the data as it would from themass storage device 110 without necessarily being aware of thesupplemental encoding/transcoding operations performed by thesupplemental processing device 120 prior to receiving the data.

In other embodiments, it may be desirable for the multimedia processingdevice 102 to be aware of the particular capabilities of thesupplemental processing device 120. For example, it may be desirable toconvert a retail set-top box from a device that simply decodes MPEG dataand then provides the decoded MPEG data for display to a PVR that iscapable of re-encoding or transcoding the MPEG data, storing there-encoded/transcoded MPEG data, and then subsequently decoding the MPEGdata for later playback. In these implementations, the software and/orfirmware of the multimedia processing device 102 may be updated orupgraded so that the multimedia processing device 102 is able tomanipulate the supplemental processing device 120 so that thesupplemental processing device 120 provides the desired functionality.In this instance, the interface between the processing devices 102 and120 provided by the ATAPI interfaces 106, 122 and the ATAPI bus 108allows the multimedia processing device 102 to be upgraded in theabove-described manner without requiring substantial hardwaremodifications that would be necessary to connect the processing devices102 and 120 in a conventional manner.

The storage device emulator 134 may include software, firmware, orhardware, or a combination therein, so as to allow the supplementalprocessing device 120 to receive and provide commands and data via theATAPI client interface 122 in the same or similar manner that aconventional mass storage device would receive and provide commands anddata via its ATAPI client interface. Likewise, the storage deviceemulator 134 operates the ATAPI host interface 126 to provide andreceive commands and data from the mass storage devices 128 and 130.Further, the storage device emulator 134 acts as an ATAPI bridge byreflecting data and commands between the ATAPI client interface 122 andthe ATAPI host interface 126 when no additional processing is to beprovided by the one or more processing modules 124 for data supplied bythe provided by the multimedia processing device 102 for storage in themass storage devices 128 or 130, or on data obtained from the massstorage devices 128 or 130 for provision to the multimedia processingdevice 102 (i.e., when the supplemental processing device 120 isoperating in a “pass-through” mode).

In many instances, the ATAPI connection provided by the ATAPI hostinterface 106, ATAPI bus 108 and the ATAPI client interface 122 may besufficient for the operations of the processing devices 102 and 120.However, in other instances, additional control signaling may bedesirable, accordingly, a separate command/control bus 136 may beimplemented between the processing devices 102 and 120. The additionalsignaling may be done via common busses such as 12C or UART or by lesscomplex busses such as an SRAM-like eight-bit or sixteen-bit parallelbus.

The multimedia system 100 may be utilized in any of a variety of ways.For example, the capabilities of the processing devices 102 and 120 maybe combined to provide a DVD player with enhanced capabilities. In thisimplementation, rather than connecting the DVD drive directly to theATAPI host interface 106 for direct access by the multimedia processingdevice 102, the DVD drive is coupled to the ATAPI host interface 126 ofthe supplemental processing device 120. In this manner, multimediacontent from the DVD drive may be obtained by the supplementalprocessing device 120 and then “pre-processed” (e.g., transcoded ordeciphered) by performing one or more processing operations on the datarepresentative of the multimedia content. The “pre-processed” multimediacontent then may be provided from the processing device 120 to theprocessing device 102 via the ATAPI interfaces 106, 122 and ATAPI bus108. As the multimedia processing device 102 receives the multimediacontent from the ATAPI host interface 106 as it would receive multimediacontent from a conventional DVD drive coupled to the ATAPI bus 108, the“preprocessing” of the multimedia content provided by the supplementalprocessing device 120 may be transparent to the multimedia processingdevice 102.

The system 100 alternatively may be configured to operate as a “pseudo”DVD player whereby multimedia content supplied by the A/V feed 114 tothe supplemental processing device 120 may be encoded (if the multimediacontent is in an unencoded or decoded form) or transcoded (if themultimedia content is in an encoded form) by the processing module 124and the encoded/transcoded multimedia content may be stored to one orboth of the storage devices 128 or 130. The stored media content fromthe A/V feed 114 subsequently may be obtained from the storage devices128 or 130 and provided to the multimedia processing device 102 fordecoding and display as described above.

Referring to FIG. 2, an exemplary method 200 of operation of the system100 (FIG. 1) as an enhanced DVD player as described above isillustrated. At step 202, the supplemental processing device 120 obtainsmultimedia data from one of storage devices 128 or 130 (implemented as,for example a DVD drive) via the ATAPI interface 126 and the ATAPI bus132. Alternately, the multimedia data is obtained directly from the A/Vfeed 114 via the A/V input 133. In one instance, multimedia data isunencoded. Accordingly, at step 204, the processing module 124 performsone or more processing operations on the multimedia data, such asencoding the multimedia data. In another instance, the multimedia datais encoded, but it may have a resolution, frame rate, bit rate, or othercharacteristic that is unsupported by, or not optimal for, the decodingcapability of the processing module 104 of the processing device 102.Accordingly, in this instance, the multimedia data is transcoded by theprocessing module 124 at step 204. Additional processing operations,such as descrambling, decryption or deciphering operations, higher levelprogrammable features such as keyword detection based on opticalcharacter recognition (OCR) or voice recognition, and automatic chapterindexing based on cues in the stream, may be performed by the processingmodule 124 at step 204. At step 206, the encoded/transcoded multimediadata is provided to the multimedia processing device 102 via the ATAPIclient interface 122, the ATAPI bus 108 and the ATAPI host interface106. In this instance, the encoded/transcoded multimedia data may betransmitted in accordance with conventional ATAPI protocols, with theassistance of the storage device emulator 134, so that theencoded/transcoded multimedia data appears to the processing device 102to have been provided by a conventional mass storage device. At step 208the processing module 104 decoded the encoded/transcoded multimedia dataand the decoded multimedia data is provided for display on the displaydevice 112 at step 210.

In other instances, the system 100 may be configured so as to provide aPVR whereby multimedia content received from the A/V feed 114 may berecorded and then provided for subsequent playback. In this case,multimedia content provided via the A/V feed 114 is received by themultimedia processing device 102 via an A/V input similar to the A/Vinput 133 discussed above. The data representing the multimedia contentis decoded by the processing module 104 as necessary and the resultingdata is provided to the supplemental processing device 102 via the ATAPIinterfaces 106 and 102 and the ATAPI bus 108. The decoded data also maybe formatted and output for display by the display device 112 at thesame time. The processing module 124 can encode or transcode the receivedata and store it to one or both of the mass storage devices 128 or 130.In the event that the mass storage device used to store the data is aDVD drive, the processing module 124 further may provide DVD authoringfunctionality when writing the data to a DVD. The stored datasubsequently may be accessed and provided to the processing module 104via the ATAPI interfaces 106 and 122 and the ATAPI bus 108, whereupon itis decoded and formatted for display on the display device 112 inaccordance to instructions received from a user of the system 100.

Referring to FIG. 3, an exemplary method 300 of operation of the system100 (FIG. 1) to store multimedia content as described above isillustrated. At step 302 multimedia data representative of multimediacontent is received at the multimedia processing device 102 via, forexample, the A/V feed 114 or via the mass storage device 110. At step304, the processing module 104 processes the received multimedia data.Processing of the multimedia data may include, for example, processingoperations directed to decoding the multimedia data when the multimediadata is encoded at the time of its receipt or transcoding the multimediadata. At step 306, the multimedia data is provided to the supplementalprocessing device 120 via the ATAPI interfaces 106, 122 and the ATAPIbus 108. At step 308, the multimedia data is encoded if received in adecoded/unencoded form or the multimedia data may be transcoded ifreceived in an encoded form. Alternately, encoded multimedia data mayremain unprocessed by the processing module 124. At step 310, theencoded/transcoded data is provided to one or more of the storagedevices 128 or 130 for storage via the ATAPI host interface 126 and theATAPI bus 132. Subsequent access to the stored data for playback at thedisplay device 112 may be performed as described with respect to FIG. 2above.

Referring now to FIG. 4, an exemplary implementation of a multimediasystem is illustrated in accordance with at least one embodiment of thepresent disclosure. The system 400 includes a DVD decoder 402 having anATAPI host interface (not shown) coupled to a supplemental encodingdevice 404 implemented as, for example, a system on a chip (SOC) on aprinted circuit board (PCB) 406. In the illustrated example, thesupplemental encoding device 404 includes an MPEG encoder 408, an ATAPIclient interface 410, an ATAPI host interface 412, and a general purposeinput/output (GPIO) 414. The ATAPI host interface 412 is operablycoupled to storage devices 414 and 416 via ATA connectors 418 and 420,respectively, and ATAPI bus 422 at the PCB 406. The ATAPI clientinterface 410 is operably coupled to the ATAPI host interface of the DVDdecoder 402 via an ATA connector 416 and an ATAPI bus 418 at the PCB406. The ATAPI bus 426, and therefore the ATA connector 424 and theATAPI client interface 410, is coupleable to the ATA connector 418, andtherefore the storage device 414, via a bus extension 428 and a switch430 operable based on the output of the GPIO 414. Thus, a connection tothe storage device 414 and 416 may be alternated between thesupplemental encoding device 404 and the DVD decoder 402 using theswitch 430.

In modes utilizing the functionality of the encoding device 404, theswitch 430 may be operated such that the ATAPI host interface 412 isconnected to both ATA connectors 418 and 420, and therefore connected toboth storage device 414 and storage device 416. In such modes, thesupplemental processing device 404 may be used to transfer data betweenthe storage devices 414 and 416 (with or without performing encodingoperations by the MPEG encoder 408), data may be obtained from one orboth of the storage devices 414 and 416, processed, and provided to theDVD decoder 402, or data may be received from the DVD decoder 402,processed, and then provided to one or both of the storage devices 414or 416. In other modes, the functionality provided by the supplementalencoding device 404 may be bypassed using the switch 430 so that thedata is transmitted directly between the ATA connectors 418 and 424 (andtherefore directly between the DVD decoder 402 and the storage device414). In such modes, the DVD decoder 402 may provide data directly tothe storage device 414 for storage or the DVD decoder 402 may obtaindata directly from the storage device 414 without routing the datathrough the encoding device 404.

Other embodiments, uses, and advantages of the present disclosure willbe apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of thespecification and practice of the disclosure disclosed herein. Thespecification and drawings should be considered exemplary only, and thescope of the disclosure is accordingly intended to be limited only bythe following claims and equivalents thereof.

1. A device comprising: a processing module to process multimedia data;a first mass storage device interface operably coupled to the processingmodule, the first mast storage interface operable to couple to a massstorage device interface of a multimedia processing device; and a secondmass storage device interface operably coupled to the first mass storagedevice and the processing module, wherein the second mass storage deviceis operable to couple to one or more mass storage devices.
 2. The deviceof claim 1, further comprising: a storage device emulator operablycoupled to the first and second mass storage device interfaces, thestorage device emulator operable to facilitate a transfer of multimediadata between the multimedia processing device and the first mass storagedevice interface and to facilitate a transfer of multimedia data betweenthe second mass storage device interface and the one or more massstorage devices.
 3. The device of claim 1, wherein: the first massstorage device is operable to receive a first multimedia data from themultimedia processing device; the processing module is operable toperform at least a first processing operation on the first multimediadata to generate a first processed data; and the second mass storagedevice interface is operable to provide the first processed multimediadata to at least one of the one or more mass storage devices for storageon the at least one mass storage device.
 4. The device of claim 3,wherein the first processing operation comprises at least one of anencoding operation, a decoding operation, a transcoding operation, aciphering operation, a deciphering operation, or a DVD authoringoperation.
 5. The device of claim 4, wherein the processing modulecomprises at least one of an encoder, a decoder, a codec, a transcoder,a content protection module, a DVD authoring module, a decipheringmodule, or a ciphering module.
 6. The device of claim 3, wherein: thesecond mass storage device interface further is operable to receive athird multimedia data from the at least one mass storage device, thethird multimedia data representing at least a portion of the firstprocessed multimedia data stored on the at least one mass storagedevice; the processing module is further operable to perform at least asecond processing operation on the third multimedia data to generate asecond processed multimedia data; and the first mass storage deviceinterface further is operable to provide the second processed multimediadata for reception by the mass storage device interface of themultimedia processing device.
 7. The device of claim 6, wherein thefirst processing operation comprises a decoding operation and the secondprocessing operation comprises an encoding operation.
 8. The device ofclaim 6, wherein the first processing operation comprises an encodingoperation and the second processing operation comprises a decodingoperation.
 9. The device of claim 6, wherein the first processingoperation comprises an encoding operation and the second processingoperation comprises a transcoding operation.
 10. The device of claim 1,wherein: the second mass storage device interface further is operable toreceive a first multimedia data from the at least one mass storagedevice; the processing module is operable to perform at least a firstprocessing operation on the first multimedia data to generate a firstprocessed multimedia data; and the first mass storage device interfacefurther is operable to provide the first processed multimedia data forreception by the mass storage device interface of the multimediaprocessing device.
 11. The device of claim 1, wherein the first massstorage device interface comprises at least one of an ATA-compliantinterface, an SATA-compliant interface, an ATAPI-compliant interface, aUSB-compliant interface or an IEEE 1394-compliant interface.
 12. Thedevice of claim 11, wherein the second mass storage device interfacecomprises at least one of an ATA-compliant interface, an SATA-compliantinterface, an ATAPI-compliant interface, a USB-compliant interface or anIEEE 1394-compliant interface.
 13. The device of claim 1, furthercomprising an input to receive multimedia data from a multimedia feed.14. The device of claim 13, wherein multimedia feed comprises at leastone of a streaming multimedia data on a network, a cable televisionfeed, a satellite television feed, or a terrestrial television feed. 15.A system comprising: a first mass storage device; a first multimediaprocessing device comprising: a first processing module; and a firstmass storage device interface operably coupled to the first processingmodule; and a second multimedia processing device comprising: a secondprocessing module; a second mass storage device interface operablycoupled to the first mass storage device and the second processingmodule; and a third mass storage device interface operably coupled to atleast the first mass storage device.
 16. The system of claim 15, whereinthe second multimedia processing device further comprises: a storagedevice emulator operably coupled to the second and third mass storagedevice interfaces, the storage device emulator operable to facilitate atransfer of multimedia data between the first mass storage deviceinterface and the second mass storage device interface and to facilitatea transfer of multimedia data between the third mass storage deviceinterface and the first mass storage device.
 17. The system of claim 16,wherein the second multimedia processing device appears as aconventional mass storage device to the first multimedia processingdevice.
 18. The system of claim 15, wherein: the first processing moduleis operable to perform a first processing operation on a firstmultimedia data to generate a first processed multimedia data; the firstmass storage device interface is operable to provide the first processedmultimedia data to the second mass storage device interface; the secondmass storage device interface is operable to receive the first processedmultimedia data from the first mass storage device interface; the secondprocessing module is operable to perform a second processing operationon the first processed multimedia data to generate a second processedmultimedia data; the third mass storage device interface is operable toprovide the second processed multimedia data for storage on the firstmass storage device.
 19. The system of claim 18, wherein the firstprocessing operation comprises at least one of an encoding operation, adecoding operation, a transcoding operation, a ciphering operation, or adeciphering operation.
 20. The system of claim 19, wherein the secondprocessing operation comprises at least one of an encoding operation, adecoding operation, a transcoding operation, a ciphering operation, adeciphering operation, or a DVD authoring operation.
 21. The system ofclaim 15, wherein: the third mass storage device interface is operableto receive a first multimedia data from the first mass storage device;the second processing module is operable to perform a first processingoperation on a first multimedia data to generate a first processedmultimedia data; the second mass storage device interface is operable toprovide the first processed multimedia data to the first mass storagedevice interface; the first mass storage device interface is operable toreceive the first processed multimedia data from the second mass storagedevice interface; and the first processing module is operable to performa second processing operation on the first processed multimedia data togenerate a second processed multimedia data.
 22. The system of claim 15,wherein the first, second and third mass storage device interfacesinclude at least one of an ATA-compliant interface, an SATA-compliantinterface, an ATAPI-compliant interface, a USB-compliant interface or anIEEE 1394-compliant interface.
 23. The system of claim 15, wherein theat least one of the first or second multimedia processing devicesfurther comprises an input to receive multimedia data from a multimediafeed.
 24. A method comprising: receiving a first multimedia data atfirst mass storage device interface of a first multimedia processingdevice; processing the first multimedia data at the first multimediaprocessing device to generate a first processed multimedia data; andproviding the first processed multimedia data to a second mass storagedevice interface of the first multimedia processing device for output.25. The method of claim 24, wherein the first mass storage deviceinterface is operably coupled to a third mass storage device interfaceof a second multimedia processing device and the second mass storagedevice interface is operably coupled to at least one mass storagedevice.
 26. The method of claim 25, wherein processing the firstmultimedia data comprises at least one of encoding the first multimediadata, decoding the first multimedia data, transcoding the firstmultimedia data, deciphering the first multimedia data, or ciphering thefirst multimedia data.
 27. The method of claim 25, further comprising:receiving a second multimedia data at the second mass storage deviceinterface of the first multimedia processing device, the secondmultimedia data comprising at least a portion of the first processedmultimedia data; processing the second multimedia data at the firstmultimedia processing device to generate a second processed multimediadata; and providing the second processed multimedia data to the firstmass storage device interface of the first multimedia processing devicefor output to the third mass storage device interface of the secondmultimedia processing device.
 28. The method of claim 24, wherein thesecond mass storage device interface is operably coupled to a third massstorage device interface of a second multimedia processing device andthe first mass storage device interface is operably coupled to at leastone mass storage device.
 29. The method of claim 24, wherein the firstmultimedia processing device appears as a conventional mass storagedevice to the second multimedia processing device.
 30. The method ofclaim 24, wherein the first and second mass storage device interfacesinclude at least one of an ATA-compliant interface, an SATA-compliantinterface, an ATAPI-compliant interface, a USB-compliant interface or anIEEE 1394-compliant interface.